Good Dog

by Dan Gemeinhart

“Great thinking on the truck,” Tuck said to her. “And you’re welcome for the ride, by the way.”

  The cat pulled back her lips, showing her sharp white teeth.

  “If you ever do that again, dog breath, I’ll scratch your eyes out.”

  “You can’t scratch a ghost’s eyes out.” Tuck grinned, all smile and wag.

  The cat narrowed her eyes. Her tail whipped furiously.

  “You sure about that?”

  Tuck looked nervously sideways at Brodie.

  “She can’t, can she?”

  “How long do we have to stay up here?” Brodie asked, changing the subject. He looked back at the dogs, still visible in the distance, running after them.

  “Until they stop chasing us, smart stuff,” the cat answered. “Or until we hit another red light. Better start praying that doesn’t happen too soon.” She looked past Brodie to glare at their pursuers. “They ain’t gonna get tired, you know. So you may as well settle in. We could be on this dump till morning.”

  Brodie shifted uneasily. He could feel the truck pulling him farther and farther away from his boy. He turned a nervous circle and eyed the dogs chasing them, waiting for them to disappear so he could hop off and find Aiden.

  Because Brodie? His heart had a compass needle that never lost its way.

  “No,” he said. “I can’t wait that long.”

  “What’s the rush, dog?” the cat asked, stretching and lying down. “This truck is taking us away from those mutts that were just dyin’ to tear your soul to pieces. Relax and enjoy the ride.”

  “I can’t.”

  The cat’s eyes narrowed.

  “Why not?”

  Brodie hesitated. The cat had saved their skins, there was no doubt about that. But he wasn’t sure how much he really wanted to trust her.

  “We just got here,” he began. “Well, we just got back here. From … that other place, ya know? And I’ve … got something I need to do.”

  The cat blinked.

  “Something you need to do?” she asked. Her voice had lost some of its angry edge. “There’s nothing you can do here, dog. You can watch. You can want. You can lose. But you can’t do nothing.”

  Brodie swallowed. He listened to the rumble of the truck that was pulling them through the night. He was looking for words, and trying to calm the tremble that the cat’s words had sent into his heart.

  “I have to,” he said at last.

  The cat gave him a slow, bored blink.

  “Huh. Well, what is it, then? What hopeless thing do you gotta not do down here?”

  Brodie looked up at the stars for just a second, closing his eyes to bring back the memory of Aiden’s face, of his arms tight around him.

  “I have to find my boy. I have to make sure he’s okay.”

  “Your boy?” the cat sneered. “And what are you gonna do if he’s not okay?”

  Brodie looked her right in her cold, feline eyes.

  “Then I’ll save him.”

  The cat looked at Brodie for a long moment. Then she blinked and looked out at the night.

  “You’re such an idiot,” she said. “I should’ve let ’em have you. It would have been quicker that way, at least.”

  Brodie’s ears drooped.

  “Hey, knock it off,” Tuck cut in. “Don’t listen to her, buddy. She don’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “Really?” the cat shot back. “And you do, brainless?” Her fur bristled. “You can’t help the living. And they can’t help you. Trust me on that, pooch.”

  Brodie stepped anxiously from foot to foot, licking his lips. He looked at Tuck, then back at the dogs that were just distant dots by then, then to the parked cars they were passing.

  Because that cat’s words? They shook him up something awful. They did. They shook him up in a way that, just for a moment, made him doubt everything. Even himself.

  But then … then, they just didn’t. That’s the only way to describe it. It all came back to that compass needle in Brodie’s heart, you see. You could shake it up all you wanted. But Brodie’s heart was the kind that never gets lost. Even when it didn’t know where it was. His needle spun; then it came back to his true north. Aiden.

  He stopped his pacing. He clenched his teeth tight.

  “I’m gonna try,” Brodie said. “That’s all I know. I’m gonna try. I’ve gotta try.”

  That cat gave him a long look that Brodie couldn’t quite read.

  “Fine. Go ahead and try. But you’re gonna have to ride up here for a while, anyway. You know, unless you want your soul to be Darkly’s next chew toy.”

  Brodie knew she was right. He knew that getting into it with those dogs would only slow him down and make it even harder to get back to Aiden. He tried to remember what the angel had said, tried to remember the bigger truth. If he just waited until they were out of sight of those dogs—even if the truck just went around a corner, maybe—he could jump off and cut back to Aiden. That’s all he had to do. Take a breath. See the big picture. Wait.

  He turned his head to look back at the cat.

  “My name’s Brodie,” he said. “And his name is Tuck.”

  The cat blinked at him and yawned, her tongue curling dramatically.

  “Fascinating,” she replied.

  “What’s yours?”

  “What’s my what?”

  “Your, uh, name.”

  The cat licked her paw and scrubbed behind her ear. Brodie thought she wasn’t going to answer, but between licks she muttered, “Patsy.”

  “Patsy?” Tuck exclaimed. “Your name’s Patsy?”

  Patsy stopped her bathing and fixed Tuck with a seething glare.

  “Yeah. Something wrong with that?”

  “Nah,” Tuck said. “It’s just such a … cute name, is all.”

  “Well, I didn’t pick it.” She gave her chest a last couple licks, then straightened up and looked back and forth between Tuck and Brodie. Her eyes followed the glowing paths of their circling soul lights.

  “Man,” she said quietly, her eyes sharp and her voice far away. “You mutts got so much shine. It’s been a long time since I seen that much soul in one place.” Her tongue slid along her lips, then she shook her head and looked away.

  Brodie looked back behind them. His tail leapt into a high wag, and he jumped to his feet. The truck had picked up speed while they’d been talking. The dark dogs were nearly gone, nearly out of sight in the darkness.

  “We lost ’em,” he said. “Time to hop off.”

  The cat craned her neck, looking back down the road.

  “I wouldn’t jump yet. They’re still back there. Best to wait until sunrise. It ain’t too long.”

  “Why sunrise?”

  “Those hellhounds chasing us. Their kind don’t move around much when the sun’s up. Once your soul’s gone, you just feel more like sticking to the shadows. Sunlight, daytime, people and animals moving around … it all just feels too alive, you know? The soulless just don’t fit.”

  Behind Patsy, Tuck was stomping his paws on the truck bed. He scratched at it with his claws. He raised up on his hind legs, then brought both front paws down on the truck bed with all the weight of his body. Brodie had been ignoring it for as long as he could.

  “Tuck!” he snapped. “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “So we jumped right through that wall. But here we are on this truck.”

  “Careful,” the cat said, her voice bored.

  “See what I’m saying?” Tuck went on. “Why can we touch this truck?” He pawed stubbornly at the truck bed beneath them.

  “Careful,” the cat said again, yawning.

  “It doesn’t make sense, though! If we can go straight through a wall, we should go straight through …”

  Tuck didn’t get a chance to finish his thought. In mid-sentence, he disappeared. He dropped right down through the truck bed. The last Brodie saw of him was a pair of wide eyes and a couple of flapping ears.

  Pat
sy rolled her eyes.

  “I warned him.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  The cat pointed with her chin toward the road behind them. Brodie turned and saw Tuck, sitting in the road, shaking his head and looking around.

  He spied them driving away and hopped up to chase them.

  “Hey!” he hollered. “Wait up!”

  “He’s not, like, super smart, is he?” Patsy asked. “I mean, even for a dog.”

  “Tuck!” Brodie shouted, stepping to the very back of the truck.

  Tuck was running full out but the truck was really moving now, and he was falling behind by the second.

  “He’s not gonna catch us!” Brodie said.

  “Nah. Probably not.” Patsy yawned behind him.

  “What can we do?”

  “I dunno. Shout good-bye and count our blessings?”

  “Seriously, Patsy!”

  Tuck’s legs were pumping, his tongue flapping, but he was getting smaller and smaller and farther and farther away.

  “Geez, if you have to stay with that half-wit, just jump off and join him.”

  “Jump off? A moving truck?”

  Brodie looked down at the asphalt whizzing by beneath them. He hopped from foot to foot. He brought his claws right up to the edge.

  “Brodie!” Tuck called.

  Brodie wiggled his rear, getting ready to jump.

  “You really gonna jump?” Patsy asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Here, then. Give me a ride.”

  “Huh? What do you m—”

  Without warning, Patsy’s weight landed with a thump on his shoulders. Her claws dug into his back, but just enough to hold on. The force of her hitting him threw him off-balance and he lurched forward. He tried to pull back but it was no use. He tumbled off the back of the truck and plummeted toward the street.

  Brodie landed with a skidding thump, his paws scrambling frantically to keep up with his body. Patsy leapt off his back while he fought to keep his balance. His paws lost the race and he rolled across the asphalt and came to rest in the middle of the road. The truck was rumbling away from them, its taillights glowing red.

  Patsy stood calmly beside him, lazily licking at her shoulder. Tuck came running up.

  “Epic wipeout!”

  “Thanks,” Brodie said, standing up and flexing all his muscles. Despite the high-speed crash onto cold winter asphalt, he felt totally fine.

  Being a dead, bodiless spirit dog? It’s not all bad.

  “So, uh, what now?” Tuck asked, looking around. There was more traffic on the street now, more cars passing them without seeing them. The horizon was starting to glow a pale yellow.

  “Well, we don’t hang around here,” Patsy answered. “Those hellhounds could be right behind us.”

  “No,” Brodie said. “They’re pretty far back. They’re heading our way, but just walking.”

  Tuck cocked his head.

  “How do you know that?”

  Brodie blinked. He looked at Tuck, then away down the road toward where he knew, just somehow knew, that Darkly and his gang were moving steadily toward them.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  Patsy was looking closely at him, her eyes narrowed.

  “Wait a minute. Darkly had a bit of glow on him, didn’t he? Where’d he get it?”

  “Well … from me. He … ripped it off me, or something.” He paused, remembering the horrible, heart-shaking agony of his soul being torn. “It was terrible.”

  “Well, great,” Patsy spat. Her hair rose and she stared intensely back toward wherever the hellhounds were, coming toward them. “He’s got some of your soul, you idiot. You’re connected now. You can feel him. And he can feel you.”

  “So?”

  “So? So he can follow you.” The cat paced, her body tight and her hair still raised. “Quick. Feel him out. How far are we talking here? How much time do we have?”

  Brodie closed his eyes. And, yeah, there it was. He could feel Darkly. Feel the thin, ghostly connection between them. He could feel his hungry presence in the distance. He felt it in his head, felt it with his thoughts the way you sniff at a faint smell to figure out what it is and where it’s coming from.

  “He’s … he’s … I don’t know, kind of a long way off. Nowhere close.”

  “Okay. But not running?”

  Brodie felt again, concentrating.

  “No, he’s just walking, I think. Even slower now. He feels … um … he’s feeling …” He squeezed his eyes tight, focusing on the feeling and finding new words to describe it. “He feels restless, and … uneasy? He’s looking for … someplace dark? Yeah. That’s it. They stopped walking.”

  He opened his eyes, wagging his tail at his success.

  “Right,” Patsy said thoughtfully. “It’s almost sunrise. They’ll want to hole up until dark. But then they’ll be right on us. No way they’re letting shine like yours get away.”

  “Okay,” Brodie said. “We’ll just get to my boy before nighttime, then. No problem.”

  Patsy gave him a look scornful enough to have dried up Brodie’s spit, if he’d had any.

  “Yeah,” she said. “No problem. We better move.”

  Tuck looked at her.

  “You’re coming with us?”

  Patsy yawned.

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  Tuck’s mouth popped open into a grin and his tail beat a steady wag.

  “Really? Why?”

  “Well, let’s see. I’m small, and you’re big. I’m down to about zero soul, and you’re filthy with it. I’m bored, and you’re … amusing. Besides, I’m dead. What else am I gonna do?”

  Tuck’s tail wagged harder. He gave Patsy a happy lick.

  “Cool! This’ll be fun! Welcome to our—” His words were cut short by a hiss and a batting paw.

  “Easy, dogface. Don’t talk me out of it. You two morons need me a heckuva lot more than I need you.”

  Tuck retreated, his tail between his legs but his eyes still cheerful.

  Patsy looked to Brodie, her tail swishing irritably.

  “Which way, smart stuff? The clock’s ticking.”

  Luckily, Brodie didn’t think they had to head back toward the waiting hellhounds. He figured that the chase of the night before—first on foot, then on the truck—had been kind of two sides of a triangle, and by where the sun rose and from some faint stirrings of memory, he was able to figure out what he thought was the right general direction for them to head in to get back to where they’d started. They didn’t waste any time.

  The world woke up around them as they walked. People walked out of houses and got into cars. Birds sang and flew from tree to tree. Cats and dogs and squirrels went about their business of chasing, slinking, eating, barking. All those silly, pointless, wonderful things that living animals do. The three dead animals walked through it all, surrounded by it, but hopelessly separate. None of the barks were for them, none of the people stooped to pet them, squirrels didn’t even bother running away when Tuck bounded up to them, barking. They were worse than invisible.

  And being invisible and ignored in a bright world full of life? It’s not a great feeling. Brodie couldn’t help but remember the angel’s words: You’re done with that world now. And it’s done with you.

  To fill the silence between them—and the loneliness within himself—Brodie peppered Patsy with questions while they walked.

  “So … how does this all work? Like, why did Tuck fall through the truck like that?”

  “It ain’t that complicated,” Patsy said. “We ain’t actually here, right? I mean, not our bodies. Those are rotting away somewhere, feeding the worms. So we can go through walls, fences, trucks, you name it. But our souls have enough to them, enough memory of being around, that we can kinda make ourselves real enough for us to move around. Like … we don’t just fall right through the ground, right? And since you thought you could jump up on the truck, you could. But once you thought about not standing on the
truck, you couldn’t. Get it?”

  “Nope,” Tuck said cheerfully, snapping pointlessly at a butterfly that fluttered past.

  “I’m shocked.”

  “So, we kinda choose what’s real?” Brodie asked. “We can choose what to touch?”

  “More or less. But it costs you. Every time you really touch the world, every time you make yourself real enough to do something—like jump on a truck—it costs you a little bit of your soul. Even walking down this sidewalk right now, all this touching of the world … it’s taking a little of our souls, just a drop at a time.”

  “But I could, like, bite something, if I really wanted to?” Brodie asked.

  “I guess. If you try, you could make yourself a little more real, real enough to touch stuff and bite stuff and move stuff. But that costs you even more, right? And once you get down to nothing, you’re nothing. You’re stuck.”

  Brodie walked on a bit, thinking.

  “But those dogs. They didn’t have any shine. How can they still move around? How come they can touch the sidewalk and run, if they don’t have any soul left to spend?”

  “The hellhounds? I dunno. No one does, maybe. Maybe it’s because they’re stuck, like they’re part of this world again. In a way, they’re kinda real again. But it ain’t no way to be. Trust me.”

  “Why are they called hellhounds?” Tuck cut in.

  “Who knows? They’re evil. They’re nasty. They’re dead and they ain’t never getting to heaven. The name kinda works, I guess.”

  “Is it just dogs? I mean, are there such things as hellcats?”

  “Sure, there’s hellcats. I even ran into a hellbird once. Now that was a creature I’d rather not meet again, I tell ya. Nasty little thing. No sense of respect.”

  They came up to a busy intersection. There was a gas station and a stoplight and a couple of the restaurants where Brodie remembered people could drive through in their cars and get food. He sniffed at the air, savoring the greasy, familiar smell of hot food.

  “That costs ya, too, ya know,” Patsy said.

  “What?”

  “Smelling like that. You ain’t thinking, pooch. You just made your nose real enough to pick up smells in the air. Keep doing that, and your soul will be gone before you know it.”

  Brodie’s heart sank.